


Begin Again (It's Not the End)

by SingingInTheRaiin



Series: Worth the Wait [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s11e01 The Woman Who Fell to Earth, F/F, F/M, Gen, Idiots in Love, Rory and Rose are BFFs, Temporary Amnesia, Time Travel, XD, and I'm too lazy to even read all the way through the transcripts, i haven't actually watched any of the relevant episodes, it's okay to cry when you have a lot of feelings, marriage bond, my knowledge comes from episode summaries and transcripts, two blondes walk onto a TARDIS...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-12-12 05:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20996708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: The Doctor fell from the TARDIS, and Rose was left behind. But she's sick and tired of being left behind by the Doctor, so she's not going to just sit around and wait to be rescued.





	1. Chapter 1

Rose had distracted herself with painting her nails while the Doctor was gone, because she knew that was preferable to worrying about him. She knew as well as he did that it never got any easier to lose friends, and she respected his desire to grieve alone, even if she did wish that she didn’t have to be alone at the moment. Grieving plus dying never seemed to equal pleasant results. 

She had just washed off and repainted all twenty nails for what seemed like the thousandth time when the TARDIS let her know that the Doctor was back, and Rose rushed to the console room. He looked to be in terrible shape, but there was something almost peaceful about him. “Doctor?”

He looked over at her, a loving smile on his face, and made his way closer to pull her into a hug. “Oh, Rose, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, just leaving you behind here. We both know that I’m rubbish without you.” They sank down onto the jumpseat, still tightly entwined, and the Doctor began pressing light kisses to the top of Rose’s head. “I don’t know how I’d ever survive without you.”

“Are you going to? Survive, I mean?” Rose’s voice was hesitant, but she had to ask. Something about the Doctor’s demeanor before had seemed so defeated, and it had reminded her of losing the Ponds all over again. 

There was a brief pause, and then the Doctor pulled away just enough to look Rose in the eyes. “Yes,” he said firmly. “I’d never leave you behind. Promised forever, remember?”

Rose let out a sigh of relief, and then tucked her face against the Doctor’s chest, trying to hide her tears. He needed her to be strong right now. “I’m going to miss you,” she admitted, quietly enough that anyone without superior Time Lord senses wouldn’t have been able to hear her. 

His arms tightened around her. “I know,” he murmured. Despite the fact that the Doctor would still be alive, and would surely still love her, there was no way for either of them to deny that this particular version of him would essentially be dead. “See you on the other side,” he said softly, as he reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Rose’s ear. “Rose Tyler, have I told you lately just how much I love you?”

Rose gave him a small grin, though she knew that it wasn’t as bright as usual. “Hm, yes, I think you have. But all the same, I could do with hearing it again.” 

“Oh my beautiful, brilliant, wonderful wife. But hey, at least that’s something to look forward to, right? Another wedding?”

Rose nodded, and then continued to stand right next to him, even as the golden glow began to get brighter. Unlike the first time she’d seen him regenerate, there was no risk to her. She was a lot tougher than the average human. And even though it hurt her to see her husband’s face twisted in pain, Rose continued to stay with him, until the light eventually faded away, and there was a blonde woman standing there, just barely taller than Rose. 

Rose blinked a couple of times, and then had to hold in laughter at the way the Doctor immediately reached up to touch her hair and then run her fingers along her new teeth. Of course Rose had known that this would happen, but she was sure that it had to be something of a surprise to the Doctor. “Well, at least you don’t have two heads,” she joked.

The Doctor reached up to feel hi- her- face. “What? Am I ugly? If I am then just…” she trailed off, eyes wide. “Is that my voice? Why is it so-? Am I-?” Both of her hands dropped enough to pat her chest, and then she rushed down the hall to the bathroom to peer at her new face in the mirror. Rose followed right behind her hus- wife. “Well, I have always liked blondes,” the Doctor declared in a cheerful enough voice.

But Rose wasn’t fooled because she could feel the insecurity through the bond. So she reached out to take both of the Doctor’s hands, and squeeze them gently. “I love you,” she reminded the Doctor, putting stress on that last word. “Every single part of you, no matter what you look like. You’re my Doctor, remember?”

And the relief that suddenly rushed through the bond nearly felt like it was going to knock Rose back from the sheer force of it. It was almost impressive that the Doctor could manage to be so ridiculous sometimes. They two of them shared a long hug, and then they pulled apart just enough to kiss. Of course it was different than any of the kisses Rose had had before, but different wasn’t a bad thing. This was still the Doctor, and that was what made it so perfect.

They pulled apart, and through the bond Rose could tell that the Doctor felt the same as she did about not wanting to separate at the moment. Regeneration was always traumatic for both of them, and being together was the best way to move forward. Rose gave her wife a silly grin as she looked at the clothes that were now too big. “Why don’t you go check the wardrobe room for something more suitable, and I’ll go pick a movie?” She could already picture the two of them cuddled on the couch together, though she was sure that it would be new and exciting to figure out how they fit together all over again.

The Doctor sighed. “Right, yes.” There was a long moment where neither of them moved, and then she held out her hand to Rose. “Come with me?”

Rose nodded, and accepted the hand. Somehow, no matter the body, it seemed as though their hands were always made to hold Rose’s. “Yeah, that sounds like a better idea.” They started to head to the wardrobe room, but then suddenly there was loud blaring all around them, and they didn’t need to exchange a single word or look before they were running off to the console room, hands still tightly clutched together.

Then the TARDIS was suddenly spinning around, and that’s how Rose knew that something was very wrong. Usually, the inside of the TARDIS had something of a gyroscopic nature, so no matter how much the outside twisted and turned, the inside would remain mostly stable. For the whole room to be in the process of flipping upside down was very bad.

Rose managed to grab hold of the railing before the room turned completely sideways, and she let out a huff of laughter. “Years and years of peaceful regenerations, and then I show up and all of them involve explosions and crashes and-” she cut herself off when there was no ring of amusement through the bond, and she looked around the room wildly. From where she was hanging, there was no sign of the Doctor. And Rose realized that the bond felt very faint, the way it always did when one of them was onboard the TARDIS and the other wasn’t. 

Then the TARDIS turned abruptly, and Rose lost her grip. As she slid down the sharply angled floor, she could see the doors of the TARDIS were wide open, and she had an idea of what happened to her wife. Rose looked around, and wished she had a rope or something so that she could safely drop down, but even without one, she was prepared to leap anyways, because she’d never leave the Doctor to face danger alone if she could help it.

But the TARDIS kept spinning, and the doors slammed shut just before Rose reached them, causing her to slam into them hard enough to leave bruises, or maybe even broken bones if she had been a normal human. She let out a loud groan, and then she suddenly felt a splitting pain in her head. It left Rose unprepared to be flung about again, and she slammed up into the console. There were sparks everywhere, and the loud clanging of the alarms was making her head hurt worse, and then she suddenly felt -FEAR- through the bond.

Rose looked around frantically, and saw that the doors had popped open again, and her wife was currently falling, and Rose reached out, as if that would help at all, but she could already hear the sounds of the TARDIS dematerializing, even though she couldn’t understand how the TARDIS would leave behind her main pilot in a time like this. She glanced behind her just in time to see the console exploding in a blinding light, and then everything went dark.

,,,

Rose groaned as she returned to consciousness, and then, despite the pain in the back of her head, she bolted upright. The last thing she had felt from the Doctor had been an almost foreign level of fear, and she needed to make sure that her wife was okay. Rose slowly took in the state of the console room, and knew that she wouldn’t be able to take the TARDIS traveling for quite a while, and she let out a loud noise of frustration before getting back to her feet. 

Even after the Doctor had gone from their eleventh to twelfth self, the damage had not been quite this bad. But at least that time it could be explained away as an explosion caused by the force of a regeneration caused by extreme amounts of radiation. This time, the regeneration had been only slightly explosive. The problems in the TARDIS hadn’t even started until after the Doctor had already finished regenerating. So what had caused the system failure?

She knew that it would be pointless, but Rose couldn’t help sending a few probing thoughts along the bond, instinctively wanting to make sure that her Doctor was alright. Unfortunately, as soon as she tried she immediately recoiled. It had felt like prodding at an open wound. The Doctor had felt fear, and then something had torn their bond apart, and now Rose was really worried. 

Rose gently placed her hands down flat on the console, trying to see if she could feel anything from the damaged ship. Usually they could communicate quite easily, certainly better than the Doctor could with the TARDIS, but right now there was just nothing. No Doctor, and no TARDIS. Rose was alone. Again.

Rose set a mental timer. She would take exactly ten minutes to feel sorry for herself, and then she would figure out how to actually solve the problem. Most of that time was spent with Rose trying to figure out how to at least temporarily cover the gaping hole in her mind, but even with all her power, it just wasn’t something that she could accomplish at the moment. 

Then the ten minutes were up, and Rose tried to shake aside all thoughts that weren’t relevant to the current situation. It was suddenly the most frustrating thing in the world to know that she was capable of jumping all around time and space, but none of that meant anything when she didn’t actually know where the Doctor was. After a moment, Rose smacked herself in the forehead when she realized what an idiot she was being. The Doctor’s TARDIS might be out of commission at the moment, but that didn’t mean Rose’s was. 

She was hesitant to leave the damaged ship behind, but knew that if the TARDIS was conscious, she would have told Rose to go and save the Doctor. So Rose closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths in and out, and focused on where she kept her own TARDIS parked. It had been a very long time since she’d had any need of it, but now she was glad that she’d never listened to the Doctor’s suggestion of storing it onboard. With the TARDIS in the state she was, there was no way that any of the nonessential areas would be accessible. 

It only took a few seconds, but then Rose suddenly found herself standing on her own TARDIS, where her mind was immediately wrapped in the warm, comforting embrace of an old friend. She knew that the TARDIS was worried about the psychic damage Rose had taken from having a bond snapped, but Rose was more worried about getting to the Doctor.

Unfortunately, there was no way to find the Doctor instantly. The boomerang protocol only worked for bringing the Doctor’s TARDIS back to the Doctor, or Rose’s TARDIS back to Rose, but they’d never thought of combining the codes. It was something to regret later, though. For now, all Rose could do was set every computer the TARDIS had to finding the Doctor. Luckily, the Time Lord had something of a unique temporal signature, so Rose hoped for the best even as she knew that it could take quite some time to find the right version of the Doctor.

While she was waiting, Rose decided that she may as well go outside and say hello to some old friends. It would hurt, just like it always did to see anyone from the past, but it would be hypocritical to ignore them. Rose was the one always telling the Doctor not to just run away from the past to avoid the feelings that came with it. 

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS, and gave a slight grimace when she saw how dusty the outside was. It was disguised as an old toolshed, and Rose took a moment to give the exterior a fond pat. She’d never been daft enough to get her TARDIS’ circuits jammed up. Not like the Doctor had.

She walked up to the front door of the nearest house and gave a polite little knock. When there was no immediate answer, Rose suddenly realized that she hadn’t thought to check the date. Were the residents of this house already-?

But then the door swung open before she could work herself into a panic. As soon as Rose saw Rory’s familiar face, she threw herself towards him, in desperate need of a hug. “Whoa, hey, what’s wrong?” Rose didn’t say anything for several long seconds, and then she finally let go of Rory so she could follow him inside his house. She just looked at him, and gave him a few seconds to figure it out. He was always so much smarter than most people gave him credit for. He gave her a long, searching look, and then finally spoke again. “You’re from the future, aren’t you?”

,,,

She turned to look at the humans, feeling quite impressed with herself after that display of quick thinking. “Should buy us a few seconds.” Then she looked up at the hole she’d made when she fell into the train carriage. She was tougher than the average human- no, Time Lord. Ugh, clearly her brain was still a bit mushy from her regeneration. Well, there was no time to worry about that at the moment. Her brain would clear itself up. “Oh yeah, long story, tell you later. Doors?”

The older woman spock. “Locked shut.” 

She knew she was muttering out loud as she patted herself down, but she was more focused on the part where she had nothing with her. Including her sonic screwdriver. “Oh I hate empty pockets.” The alien came and left again, and then she decided she’d be best off searching the rest of the train.

The younger woman reached out to stop her, though. “Hey! Hold on there please, madam. I need you to do as I say. This could be a potential crime scene.”

She frowned. “Why are you calling me madam?” But even as she asked that, she already knew the answer. She had regenerated into a woman for the first time in her very long life, and she remembered feeling frightened that it would bring about the end of… something. But what? Oh well. Whatever it was, she’d get around to remembering it sooner or later, and right now it just wasn’t important. Then she was hit with the sudden thought that she needed a doctor, and a flower. How odd, though, since she wasn’t too injured and now was certainly not the time for gardening.

,,,

Rory knew that Rose couldn’t tell him much about the future, at least not more than she’d told him during their long wait together, but he almost wished that she would, if only to stop him from feeling so anxious about it. Why did she look so distraught? All she’d told him was that she was back for her TARDIS, but why would she be back for it now after years of only traveling in the Doctor’s. “Are you two fighting?” he suddenly asked. “Like you’re thinking of taking some time apart, or something?”

Rose looked shocked by the question, and she quickly shook her head. “No! No, it’s nothing like that, I promise. The Doctor and I still have a very long forever left together, if I can just- well. The Doctor’s sort of… missing at the moment. Fell out of the TARDIS. But I mean, it’s the Doctor, yeah? So she’ll be fine. I just need to see with my own eyes that she’s okay.”

“She?”

Rose’s eyes widened, and then she sighed as she leaned back in her seat. “Well, you did already see the painting. The one I did of all the Doctors.”

Rory nodded, and tried to picture the exact faces in his mind, but it had been far too long ago for him to remember them. “So he’s regenerated again? Er, sorry, she?” 

“Twice since you last saw,” Rose said quietly before reaching forward to grab her mug and take a long gulp from it. Rory wanted to ask why Rose hadn’t gone to a more future version of himself that would understand the situation better, but then he immediately realized why that would be a bad idea. Clearly a lot of time had passed for Rose and the Doctor. Amy and Rory probably weren’t traveling with the couple anymore. Depending on how long it had been, they might have even died of old age already. From the way she’d thrown herself into his arms, he could guess that it had at least been a little while.

Rory sighed. “You’ll find her,” he said with as much confidence as he could force into his voice. “I know that you will. But, uh, do you want any company for while you look?”

There was a sad, fond smile on Rory’s face, and it mostly served to confirm everything he had already been thinking. “Oh Rory Pond, you are absolutely brilliant company to have, but I’m afraid that if I were to take you along, I’d never be able to have the strength to bring you home again.” She leaned forward slightly, and lowered her voice like she was about to share a great secret. “Don’t tell anyone, but you’ve always been my favorite.”

Rory mimed zipping his lips, but then he couldn’t help asking, “What about River?”

Rose tilted her head to the side and let out a thoughtful hum. “Yeah, definitely don’t tell her.”

Rory couldn’t help letting out a little laugh. From what he understood, Rose thought of River almost like a daughter, and had been quite involved in River’s early years. So the idea that Rose still preferred him (even though it was probably only by a small margin, if she wasn’t just lying) made him smile. They had spent twelve-hundred years together. After that much time, it was inevitable that they’d either grow sick of each other or become the best of friends. “Are you going to be okay?”

It was the perfect opportunity to insert one of the classic Doctor/Rose response of ‘I’m always okay’, but it really must have been a long time, because she didn’t say that. Instead, she just shrugged one shoulder, and then gave Rory a small smile. “I hope to every religion that exists that you will never have to understand what it’s like to know the outcome but not how to get there.”

“If you know the outcome, then isn’t everything okay? No reason to get upset or anything when you know what’s going to happen?”

Rose shook her head. “Time is always in flux, Rory. I’m afraid that whatever I do might end up being the exact wrong things that lead to a different outcome. A worse one. For all my power, I’m completely powerless, at least when it comes to my own timeline, or those of anyone I love. There are entire civilizations that think of me as some kind of all-knowing goddess, but I can’t even-” she cut herself off, and reached up to ran a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be putting all of this on you. I’m sure you have more than enough to deal with with your current Doctor and Rose. Where are you, anyways?”

“Our latest adventure was being dropped off like hot garbage while you and the Doctor rushed off to your honeymoon. I’m sure you’ll be back for us soon enough, though.”

Rose grinned. “Of course we couldn’t be rid of the Ponds for long.” She got up and walked around the table to pull Rory into another hug. “My TARDIS finished her calculations, so I should go now. I know the Doctor is plenty capable of taking care of herself normally, but post-regeneration always seems like a time for extra trouble, at least most of the times that I’ve seen. Oh, but it was so good to see you again.”

Rory hesitated for a moment, and then he knew he needed to say something. “You know you can come back and visit me any time, right?”

Her eyes looked watery, and Rory wondered just how long it had been for her since she’d last seen him. “Thank you, but I really shouldn’t. There’s too much risk of you learning more about your personal future. And I don’t even know how often I’d be able to find you two when you aren’t on the TARDIS already.” She reached up to rub at her eyes. “I just miss you,” she confessed, and Rory felt his heart break for his best friend. “You’re so brilliant, I know you must already have some idea of certain future things. And I do wish so badly that I could help you change what’s going to happen, but your future is fixed. And besides, you’re so happy- I swear it.” Then she laughed, though it wasn’t the happy sounding kind of laugh. “I sound like the Doctor must have, all those years of assuring people that I was still alive and happy, even though I was so far away that he thought he’d never see me again. All of time and space at my hands, and I am useless. You- have a fantastic life, Rory. If anyone deserves to, it’s you.” And then she was suddenly gone, and not in a metaphorical way. She literally disappeared right in front of him.

Rory’s eyes widened in surprise, and he rushed outside just in time to see the toolshed dematerializing. Without the noisiness of the Doctor’s TARDIS, of course. For a moment, Rory wondered where Rose stored her TARDIS in the future, but then decided that it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know what the future held, anyways. He could see from Rose and the Doctor that knowing didn’t make everything better.

,,,

“Have you got family?”

The Doctor opened her mouth to say ‘no’, but something in her paused. Hadn’t she already remembered everything about herself? But then why was she so hesitant to say that she had no family? She seemed to get through the chatter mostly on auto-pilot, mind whirling as she tried to figure out what she could possibly still be forgetting. “I should get back to finding my TARDIS.” 

Yaz laughed. “Doctor, can I just say, you really need to get out of those clothes?”

The Doctor grinned. “Right, yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve bought women’s clothes.” Except that wasn’t accurate, was it? The Doctor had a flash of sitting in a big department store, looking suspiciously at the shop mannequins while Rose tried on what had to be every outfit in the place and- Rose! Rassilon, how could she have forgotten about Rose? “Rose is going to kill me,” she groaned. But she ignored the questions about who Rose was when a moment later, she was filled with a sudden fear. The reason she’d been able to forget about Rose was because their bond was torn up, and then the Doctor remembered watching the console room explode as she fell. 

Even after all this time together, the Doctor was sure that she still didn’t know the full of extent of how Rose had changed after Bad Wolf, and she didn’t know if even Rose could survive such an explosion. What other explanation could there be for the broken bond? It might have stretched thin in the past when they’d been far apart, but no amount of time or distance was enough to snap it. Then the Doctor was suddenly aware of the worried looks the humans were giving her. “Doctor? Are you alright?”

She gulped. “I need to get back to my TARDIS, as quickly as possible. Do you think you guys might be able to help me?” Despite the pain in both her hearts at the thought of what could have happened to Rose, the Doctor was able to concentrate enough to finish configuring the pod to bring her to the TARDIS, wherever it might have ended up. “Moment of truth, then. Wish me luck. And goodbye. Oh, deep breath. Not you lot, me.” She needed to get back to Rose, and she needed to get back to Rose now. 

A moment later, she was floating in space, along with the three humans, and she cursed her rotten luck, and then hoped that this wasn’t her fault for being slightly distracted while she’d been working, and they were all going to die out there and-

“Need a lift?” came the sound of the most beautiful voice the Doctor had ever heard, and then the Doctor and the three humans all moved to grab each other’s hands so that when Rose grabbed the Doctor’s hand, she could pull all of them inside. They landed in a heap on the floor, and then Rose shut the doors behind them. She immediately pulled the Doctor into a hug, and they held each other for several long, glorious seconds.

Then Rose let go so that she could help the humans to the infirmary. The Doctor helped as well, though she couldn’t help taking a moment to look around. This was definitely not her TARDIS. She’d only been onboard Rose’s a couple of times, but she recognized the interior, with the wallpapered walls that the Doctor had never understood the point of, and a copy of each of their wedding photos attached to the rotor itself with wall putty. 

The TARDIS was able to take care of the humans, and then the Doctor finally had the chance to look over Rose and make sure that she was okay. “I’m alright, love.”

“But our bond-”

“I know.” Rose’s eyebrows were furrowed as she gave the Doctor’s hand a tight squeeze. “I don’t know why it broke. But you’re here now, and we’re both safe, and you seem to have picked up a few strays. Can’t leave you alone for even a minute, can I?”

The Doctor shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

Then she realized that Rose was looking at the Doctor’s clothes. “Never got the chance to change?”

“Right, yeah, I’ll get right on that.” But she didn’t make a move to head to the wardrobe room. Rose rolled her eyes, though she looked entirely too fond for it to have any effect, and then she led the Doctor to the wardrobe, and went inside with her as she helped the Doctor pick out an outfit. 

They returned to the infirmary hand in hand, and Graham looked pointedly at their joined hands. “No family, eh?”

The Doctor gave Rose an apologetic look. “Post-regenerative amnesia.”

“Coma, extreme pickiness, mania, and now amnesia. How many other regeneration symptoms are there?” 

The Doctor had a sheepish look on her face, and then looked at the humans and cleared her throat. “Right, yes, introductions are in order. Rose, this is Graham, Yaz, and Ryan. They’re humans. Humans, this is Rose. She’s my wife.” As she said those words, she looked at Rose’s beautiful smile, and knew that there would be time to figure out all the details later. There was the broken bond, and the Doctor’s damaged TARDIS was still out there, and three humans who should probably be returned to Earth. But now that they were together, they would be able to fix everything. For right now though, all the Doctor could think about was that she was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that you can assume the next episode would go mostly the same as it did originally (but since I haven't seen it, I'm sure that doesn't mean much lol)


	2. A Broken Bond and a Broken Cup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was just going to make this a new story in the series, but it felt more like a direct continuation of the previous one, so I thought it would make more sense to just make this a three chapter story instead of three separate stories, if that makes any sense.

Rose could practically feel the Doctor’s eyes drilling into the back of her head. Normally, Rose didn’t mind having her spouse’s attention, since it was quite flattering. But at the moment, she knew that she wasn’t being stared at because of her nice bum. No, she was being stared at because they’d been back on the Doctor’s TARDIS for two days already, and their bond was still just as tattered as it had been when the Doctor had first fallen out. 

It’s not as though they hadn’t tried to repair the damage- the Doctor had always been better at the telepathic stuff than Rose, but they had both put in an equal amount of effort to try and repair what had been broken. To both of their confusion and frustration, the bond had not pulled itself back together. 

Living without the Doctor in her head was so bizarre after how long they’d been bonded, and when Rose prodded too hard at the frayed end, it actually hurt. But there was no reason for them to just sit around and wallow in self-pity. Rose turned to look at the Doctor with a big grin (and it was only a little bit forced). “Where should we have our third wedding?”

The Doctor frowned. “Are you sure that right now is a good time for that? You do know what happens at Time Lord weddings, right?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “No, I have absolutely no idea. I’ve only participated in three of them and witnessed a couple hundred.”

The Doctor immediately latched onto that last part, and Rose knew that it was only a form of distraction, but she decided to allow it. “You’ve seen hundreds of Time Lord weddings? Recently?”

Rose shook her head. “No. I’ve barely traveled independently since we hooked up back when you were bowties and chin. I also didn’t travel at all during my time with Rory.” It didn’t hurt to think about her best friend as much anymore as it had when she’d first lost him, but she definitely understood why the Doctor had been so opposed to starting a relationship with her all the way back before Canary Wharf. “I think I might have taken River to see one at one point.”

The Doctor furrowed her eyebrows. “How? Gallifrey would have still been time locked back then.”

It was rather adorable how the Doctor still believed even now that she was the foremost expert on how time worked. “You’re thinking in three dimensions, love. I just jumped forward to a time when the time lock was no longer in place. But if I’d really wanted to, I could have gotten through. I already did, remember? Technically three times, actually.” Then she walked over to the Doctor, and took both of her wife’s hands. “Of course I want to figure out how to fix our bond just as much as you do. But I also know that regardless of whether or not we have an active bond, I love you so much, and I want to marry you again and take the time to get to know the new you and just be with you.”

For a moment, she thought that she might have actually gotten through, but of course the Doctor had to prove herself to be just as thick-headed as ever. She gave Rose’s hands a gentle squeeze, and there was a look of determination on her face that never seemed to bode well, no matter what body she was in. “If it was just a matter of the bond being gone, then that would be one thing. But we’ve still each got the tattered remnants of it, and it hurts both of us. Don’t try to deny that. Rose, I need to fix this. I need to make it better.”

Rose closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She wanted to explain what she was feeling, but she was out of practice. For hundreds of years (or maybe thousands?) the Doctor had been the one person that Rose never needed to explain things to, because the Doctor always just knew, through their bond. 

Before she could make a solid attempt to try, though, she heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind her, and Rose reluctantly turned around to look at the oldest of the companions currently onboard the TARDIS. From the slight look of surprise on the Doctor’s face when Rose glanced back, she knew that her wife must have actually forgotten about the three humans that were still with them. “Is everything alright?” he asked carefully, looking back and forth between Rose and the Doctor.

Rose stepped towards him, letting go of the Doctor’s hands, and gave Graham a cheerful grin. “Of course! Now, I believe that you were expecting something more exciting than us just floating around in space, right? You know, I was thinking that we could start a tradition of always bringing new people to New New Earth, because that place is simply-”

“Rose,” the Doctor interrupted. Her voice wasn’t exactly sharp, but it wasn’t the friendliest, either. Not that Rose had had much of a chance yet to figure out what the Doctor normally sounded like. “Maybe until we figure things out, it would be best to drop them off at home?” She gave Graham an apologetic look. “I hadn’t meant to bring you all out into space anyways, and this is a time machine, so we could be back within a few hours as far as you’re concerned.”

Rose crossed her arms over her chest, and hated that she didn’t know what the Doctor was thinking. Did she think it was too soon to take on new people after Bill? Or did she think she couldn’t solve the problem of the bond with the distraction of humans? Or was she planning on doing some tinkering around the TARDIS that would leave them in the vortex for a while? It felt almost frightening to not know. 

“I think it’ll be nice to have some company around here, since you seem intent on just standing around and staring at me all day.”

The Doctor shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a big appreciator of art,” but the leer that accompanied her words was half-hearted at best. “But anyways, the TARDIS is still recovering, and we still don’t even know what caused the malfunction in the first place. It might not be safe for humans until we’ve at least figured that out.”

Rose frowned. “You can’t just-”

Graham cleared his throat again, more insistently this time. “Look, I can see that you two have some things that you need to work out-”

“Absolutely not!” “Our relationship is wonderful,” the Doctor and Rose interjected at the same time, the Doctor with indignation and Rose in a deadpan. 

Graham just looked at them for several long seconds. “Right…” 

“Hey, does anyone know where the loo’s gone? I swear it was just down that hallway a few hours ago,” Yaz asked as she walked into the console room. 

The Doctor frowned. “Right, as I was saying, time for the humans to go home.”

Rose bit back some truly witty comebacks (_“Don’t be daft!”_), and instead just left the room without another word. It was impossible to talk to the Doctor when she was in a stubborn mood, and Rose knew that she was too upset to have any important conversations with the Doctor at the moment. She didn’t want to say anything that she’d regret later. 

Then again, Rose was in a very unique position to actually know what she would regret later. She could just ask her future self about it, and maybe an older Rose would also have some insight about how to fix the bond. It was as good a plan as any, and Rose was determined not to think about the fact that in all her thousands of years of travel, she’d never once bumped into any other versions of herself other than that one day on Gallifrey when the Time War had been ended. It was a bit strange, since the Doctor seemed to find Doctors from other points in time every other day.

Rose thought about how far forward she should go, but then decided to just throw caution to the wind. She headed to her art studio first, and then asked the TARDIS to keep the door shut if anyone came looking for her. Even now, the Doctor’s TARDIS seemed to hold Rose’s authority above the Doctor’s. 

Then Rose went over to her wall of paintings, the ones that shouldn’t yet be seen by anyone else on the ship. She found her favorite, the one of all her Doctors, and then felt a newfound resolution build up inside of her. Rose went over to her desk and rummaged around through one of the drawers until she found a small jewelry box. She carefully opened it, and saw the locket that had been gifted to her as a present on her first wedding (or at least her first wedding to the fully Time Lord Doctor, anyways). She hadn’t worn it in many years, though, since it had served as nothing but a constant reminder of those who she’d lost. The previous Doctors, and Rory, who had given her the extremely thoughtful gift.

Rose swiped through the pictures of the Doctors, pausing when she reached leather and big ears. It was the first picture that had her in it as well, and she couldn’t help staring. He’d been her first Doctor, and the one she’d fallen in love with first. And she knew that even back then, he’d returned those feelings, no matter how much he didn’t want to (_“What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?”_).

Then there were two pictures in a row of men who looked the same, but Rose knew intimately just how different they were. The Time Lord Doctor who had lost her, and the half-human Doctor who had been left behind with her. Then there was the Doctor who always acted so goofy and alien, and the one who’d finally saved his planet but lost so many loved ones along the way, and the current Doctor, though it was a picture that hadn’t yet been taken. Rose flipped ahead, and looked at the beloved features of all the Doctors yet to come. When she reached the end and was looped back around to the picture of the first Doctor, Rose’s decision was made.

,,,

The Doctor wasn’t sure whether she should follow after Rose or not. How was she supposed to navigate all of the complicated facets of marriage when she couldn’t even figure out what Rose was thinking? It still made absolutely no sense to her, that Rose would be okay with continuing on as though they both weren’t bearing gaping wounds in their minds. Did it mean that Rose didn’t care about their bond? Of course the Doctor knew that that wasn’t true, but somehow, not being able to feel the truth for herself left her feeling insecure. 

But the TARDIS didn’t seem to be indicating anything in particular, and the Doctor knew that Rose’s connection to the TARDIS was very strong- wait! That was it! The Doctor jolted upright from where she’d leaned over the console to put in the coordinates to bring the humans home, task already forgotten.

The TARDIS had suffered a very serious system failure, and then the bond had been torn in half just minutes later. Rose had a strong connection to this particular TARDIS because she carried around part of the TARDIS’ heart with her. So surely the two most important women in the Doctor’s life hadn’t just suffered at the same time like that by coincidence, right?

The Doctor knew that she probably looked like something of a maniac as she rushed out of the console room, leaving Graham and Yaz to speculate about what was going on. But the Doctor didn’t care, not when she had just gotten a step closer to figuring out what the problem was. And once she’d figured it out entirely, she’d be able to figure out how to fix it, too, and then everything would go back to normal!

It wasn’t until she was halfway down the hall that the Doctor slowed to a halt. She couldn’t just find her wife by feeling where she was, or by figuring out what Rose was focused on at the moment. Which meant that she’d have to do this the old-fashioned way. She glanced up at the ceiling. “Will you help me?” There was no response, and the Doctor nodded in acceptance before she began her search. Sure, the TARDIS was technically infinite, but the Doctor knew her wife well enough to know where she’d go when she was upset. Didn’t she?

,,,

Rose looked around the TARDIS, and decided that she liked how it looked. It was very different than any of the desktops Rose had seen before, since the entire console room looked like the inside of an industrial kitchen, and the console itself looked like a complicated stovetop, but it was nice all the same. 

She pressed her hand against the console to greet the ship, and felt a muted warmth brush against her. Apparently the broken bond was causing enough other psychic damage that even Rose’s usual easy communication with the TARDIS was being interfered with. Now she really hoped that she’d be able to find some answers here (though it would certainly create a causal loop if she got the solution from her future self or future Doctor, but that was fine). 

“Hey, how the hell did you-” A voice called out before the owner of it abruptly cut himself off. “Rose what are you… You’re from the past, aren’t you?”

Rose looked over at the man who walked into the room, moving gracefully. He had a swimmer’s physique, had dark skin that made his bright green eyes stand out beautifully, a trail of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and thick ginger curls pillowed around his head. “Yeah. And you’re finally ginger, huh?” She’d seen that he’d be this way eventually, but had never actually met this him before. 

The Doctor snorted. “Well I had to be, didn’t I? This is my last go. And besides, I couldn’t very well let you get away with all the teasing you did before. Dyed your hair ridiculously orange just to get to me.”

Rose laughed. “Yeah, that sounds like something I’d do.” Though it was somewhat difficult to imagine a time where she’d ever want to change her appearance, since she’d been content as she was for thousands of years already. She reached up to curl a strand of hair around one of her fingers, and looked at the bottle-blonde color. At one point in her life, that hadn’t been her color, but after her body was essentially frozen in time, her hair had permanently stayed as it was, at least in terms of color. “Where am I, anyways?”

There was a sudden shifty look on the Doctor’s face, and Rose narrowed her eyes. She put her hands on her hips, and continued to stare at the Doctor to break him down until he’d actually answer her. “Oh, you’re… around,” the Doctor answered vaguely, as he stood ramrod straight and held his hands behind his back. “Er, I shouldn’t tell you too much about your future.”

Rose rolled her eyes at that. “As if you aren’t always asking me about yours.” Then she shook her head. “Whatever. I don’t need to know about anything so far ahead anyways. I’ll get there eventually, right? I just need to know how to fix our bond. I just left a few days in to your debut as being a woman, if that rings any bells.”

There was a pause as the Doctor tipped his head to the side to think, and then there was a fond look on his face. “Yes, I remember that. I was worried at first, but once you came back, I started to realize that I should just accept that sometimes my wife was bound to disappear on occasion.”

“‘Was’?”

Then there was a guilty look on the Doctor’s face, and he let out a tired sigh. “Rose, you know better than anyone how serious the consequences can be if you know too much about what’s going to happen, especially if you think that you can change it. I’m not holding it against you, but even before Bad Wolf you saw first hand the reapers that almost destroyed the universe because you changed something as small as one insignificant person being alive instead of dead.”

Rose didn’t bother complaining about the word ‘insignificant’ like she might have back when she was still all human. She knew that the Doctor wasn’t trying to insult her father, only point out how little he mattered in the grand scheme of the universe. Then again, none of them really mattered to the universe, not even the Doctor who had already saved it so many times before. 

But that was all besides the point at the moment. “I do know why certain things can’t be changed. Which is why I can be trusted to know my future. Even if it’s something frightening or dangerous, I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the life that I have with you.”

The Doctor just stubbornly shook his head, though, and then shifted to cross his arms over his chest. “Didn’t you want to know about the bond?” 

Rose stared at him for a long moment, and he didn’t try to avoid her gaze at all. Instead, he seemed to be drinking in the sight of her, which only confirmed in Rose’s mind that despite his claim that she was ‘around’, she wasn’t actually with him anymore. Rose had never been sure of whether she could die or not, but her and the Doctor had both figured that it didn’t really matter anyway, because they would have each other for a very long time before either of them reached their end. “Yeah. Tell me how to fix it, please.”

Instead of answering, the Doctor suddenly stepped forward to pull Rose into a hug, and she returned it, even if she was still a bit miffed. The hug seemed to stretch on for ages before the Doctor finally pulled away, and then he grabbed her hand and tugged her down one of the many hallways of the TARDIS. Rose was pleased to note that their hands still fit together perfectly. 

Rose wasn’t sure where the Doctor was taking her, but then they finally went through a door, and Rose grinned at the sight of the garden. It looked even more wild than it did in her time, and there were many plants that she’d never even heard of before. “By the way, did I mention that I love what you’ve done with the place?”

The Doctor laughed. “No, but I do appreciate it, even if most of the current decor wasn’t my choice. Pretty sure you thought you could force me to remember to eat if you made the console room into a kitchen.” Then he shook his head as he pulled her down one of the aisles of the garden, and they stopped in front of the patch of arkytiors. Rose still remembered the day that she and the Doctor had gone to Gallifrey to pick a whole bunch of them, only for an angry Gallifreyan to emerge from their house because apparently they’d been taking them right off the woman’s front lawn. The two of them had run away, laughing the whole time, and still clutching the fresh flowers tightly in their free hands (since obviously they’d been holding hands as they ran). “You’ve given me so many incredible gifts,” the Doctor murmured, pulling Rose out of her memories. “You gave me hope and a home when I thought I’d lost both forever, and then you also gave back my old home on top of that. You healed so much pain, and made me a better person. And of course, I have always cherished our bond beyond any measure. But I’m afraid that this is one you’ll need to figure out on your own.”

Rose sighed. “I guess I should have expected that. It’s always about a fifty-fifty chance with you.”

The Doctor reached out to brush some of Rose’s hair behind her ear, and he looked at her with blatant admiration and love. It was such a big change from what she remembered of her first Doctor, who’d been so gruff and eager to cling to anything that kept him removed from his humanity. “Oh, I do adore you, Rose. I would write entire ballads in your name, so long and detailed that they would take years to sing, if only I had any talent with such things.”

“I don’t need ballads,” Rose told him softly. “Just you.”

Time passed as they stood together, hand in hand, and watched a small breeze blow through the flowers of the garden. The roof above them looked just like a beautiful night sky, and Rose couldn’t help feeling like she never wanted to leave such a peaceful moment behind. For people like her and the Doctor, these moments came far too rarely, and never lasted nearly long enough. But for now, Rose got strength from knowing she’d be back here again someday, with this Doctor, in this garden. “I should get back,” she whispered, not wanting to ruin the peace of the moment. “We both know how useless you are without me.”

The Doctor pulled her into a tight hug, and pressed his face against the top of her head. “I don’t want you to go. I’m so tired of being left behind, Rose.” 

She frowned. “But you still have me, remember? I mean, the me who’s been with you all along, and-” she cut herself off as she felt a very faint prodding in the back of her mind from the TARDIS, and then she remembered what would happen. She pulled away suddenly, and looked up at the Doctor’s eyes, which seemed tearier than she’d ever seen before. “I’m so sorry, love.”

He sighed, and closed his eyes. “You have nothing to apologize before. We had such a long time together.”

“I’m still here, though.” She gestured to the room around them. “I still love you, more than anything, even now.”

“I know, but it’s just so hard when I can’t see you.”

The lights in the room flashed a few times in a bright pink color, and Rose gave the Doctor one of her typical grins. “Don’t be daft, just look up.” 

The Doctor glanced up at the lights, and then back down at Rose. “Good luck with everything. You still have a very, very long future ahead of you. And a very stubborn Doctor to spend it with.” They exchanged a brief kiss, and then Rose pulled away before leaving, and reappearing back in her art studio in the TARDIS at the right time. 

She thought of the future, and a time when she would need to finally return the favor that the TARDIS had once given her so very long ago. Even if it meant leaving the Doctor behind in some ways, it was after so many wonderful years together that neither of them could really count. And besides that, as long as the Doctor always had the TARDIS, he would always have Rose Tyler too. 

,,,

River looked around the room in amusement as she stepped aboard the TARDIS. There was a woman standing next to the jumpseat, which had two men sitting on it. While it was nice to know that she wasn’t going to encounter versions of the Doctor that knew less and less of her each time, sometimes it could be a bit annoying to not already know what was going to happen. It made her feel far too much like an ordinary person. 

Another woman stomped into the console room a moment later. “-maybe if I try dismantling the fried core, although I think it might still be gummed up with cookie dough from when Bill and Rose were acting like fools-”

“Doctor,” the other unknown woman cut in. “Do you always have people wandering onto your ship while you’re floating around in the middle of space?”

The blonde looked over at them, and then her eyes widened slightly when they landed on River. “Oh, now’s not really a good time, River.”

River walked over to the blonde, and looked her over carefully. “Doctor? Hm. Something seems different about you. New haircut?”

The Doctor blinked a few times in confusion before reaching up to touch her hair, and then understanding hit her. “Oh- oh! Right, yes, new face. Sorry, it’s not something we were trying to keep secret from you, it’s still just very recent.” She let out a loud laugh. “Oh, it will never stop feeling good to know that you can’t lord my future over me any longer.” 

River rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. So where’s Rose? I wanted her help with…” she trailed off at the sudden sour look on the Doctor’s face. “What’s wrong?” She couldn’t imagine the woman who raised her getting hurt, but honestly, with the Doctor and Rose anything was possible. 

“She seems to have left the ship,” the Doctor grumbled. “And the TARDIS won’t let me in her studio.”

River shrugged. “Randomly disappearing without a word? She’s just like that. I’m surprised that you haven’t figured that out in all the time you’ve been married. Oh and speaking of weddings, you better not forget to invite me to this one. I’m still upset about last time.” 

Well, she was only there to talk to Rose, so there was no point in sticking around. She’d just pop back in in a few weeks. She definitely wasn’t going to ask the Doctor for relationship advice, even if the Doctor had been in a relationship for just as long as Rose had. Not that River needed advice about how to get into a relationship- she was certain she’d done that far more times than the Doctor and Rose put together. The part she needed help with was the whole most-likely-outliving-one’s-significant-other-by-a-vast-amount-of-years.

Before she could set new coordinates in her vortex manipulator, though, she heard Rose’s voice. “Oh, River, it’s so lovely to see you!” And then she was being pulled into a hug. “You really need to come by more often,” she chided. “I feel like I never see you anymore.”

River grinned. “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of the honeymoon period,” she joked. Then she frowned when she saw the tension that almost immediately appeared in both Rose and the Doctor. “Or not?”

Rose grimaced. “Ah, now’s actually not a great time. The Doctor and I have a few things that we need to figure out.”

“So are you sending us home or not?” the other woman in the room demanded, hands on her hips. 

“Yes,” the Doctor said firmly at the same time Rose said, “Of course not.” Then the two blondes turned to look at each other, and River prepared for a few minutes of silence as they communicated over their bond and forgot about everything around them. But to her surprise, that didn’t happen. 

Rose looked away from the Doctor after only a few seconds, and neither of them had the triumphant look of someone who had just won an argument. “Sorry, uh, Yaz, Graham, Ryan, this is River. She’s a family friend.” She gestured to each one as she said their name so that River would know who was who. 

River laughed. “Any by that she means that my parents were best friends with the odd couple here, and Rose is basically my mother.”

“I suppose even in floating around in space never gets too boring,” Graham said with a slight shake of his head. 

Rose glanced back at the Doctor before looking at the humans again. “Anyways, if you three want to stay, then you’re more than welcome to. The Doctor’s just being a grouch. Just make sure not to ever fix the toasters, or she’ll be upset. We can head out somewhere soon, I promise.” Then she reached out to link her elbow with River’s. “So, what can I do for you today, Miss Song?”

River let herself be led out of the console room, though she couldn’t help glancing back at the Doctor. She had no idea what was going on between two of her favorite people, but she hoped that they would resolve it soon, for everyone’s sakes. 

,,,

Rose couldn’t stop herself from laughing at the bleary looks on the humans' faces as they discovered for the first time what it truly meant to be a companion to the Doctor. For the first time since they’d been onboard, the Doctor had woken everyone up far earlier than they could have wanted, and Rose had already been in the kitchen, so she hadn’t been able to stop her wife. 

As the three shuffled in, Rose raised herself on her tiptoes so she could rummage around in one of the cupboards for a few extra mugs, and then poured tea for everyone. “Don’t worry, it’s got caffeine in it,” she promised. 

Graham and Yaz were quick to chug theirs down, but Ryan just sighed and sadly shook his head. “I’m not supposed to have caffeine.” Rose just nodded and made him a fresh mug of decaf. 

River popped in a few minutes, looking as chipper and well-rested as usual. She grabbed Ryan’s discarded mug and downed it herself, much to Rose’s amusement. The five of them all chatted and shared smalltalk while Rose finished cooking. She ended up making more than enough, since she was used to only cooking for one or two at a time and hadn’t wanted to make too little. 

Everyone dug in, and eventually, the Doctor showed up. She paused in the doorway of the kitchen, and then made her way over to the empty seat next to Rose. “Glad to see everyone looking more awake.”

“Well, you know my cooking. It’s magical.”

“It’s something alright,” the Doctor muttered. “What’s the percentage of your life spent under Jackie’s tutelage? And you still can’t cook?”

River gently slapped the Doctor’s shoulder. “Don’t be rude. Rose is a goddess in the kitchen and everyone knows it.” The three humans all chimed in their agreement, and Rose gave them grateful smiles.  
After a few hurried mouthfuls, the Doctor looked over at the kettle, and then her gaze landed on the mug Rose was using. “Hey, that’s mine.”

Rose gave an apologetic little shrug. “Sorry. It’s been a while since we’ve had so many people in the kitchen at once, so I was in a bit of a rush. Must’ve grabbed yours by mistake. It’s alright, I’ll go grab you a fresh one.”

The Doctor shook her head, and then just grabbed Rose’s half-filled mug and took a sip from it. “No need, this one will do.”

Rose rolled her eyes at her wife’s antics, and then got up to grab another mug. She frowned when she opened the cupboard and there was nothing there. Usually the TARDIS wouldn’t hesitate to provide them with anything they needed. Before she could question it, there was a sudden nausea rolling through Rose’s stomach, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t felt sick since Bad Wolf, so this was as concerning as it was uncomfortable. 

She staggered to the side, as if she was trying to walk around on a moving boat, and the Doctor leapt up to catch her before she could fall, dropping her favorite mug on the ground in the process. A moment later, there was the sound of rushing water, and then suddenly there was water up to everyone’s ankles. “Get to the console room!” Rose shouted at the other four, and they were all quick to do as she said.

Rose reached up to press a hand against her mouth, because she felt like she was about to vomit, and she could almost feel the Doctor’s concern (though not really, since their bond was still broken). The Doctor looked at the water in the kitchen, which had stopped rising pretty quickly. “It’s the pool?” Then she shook her head, and focused on Rose. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

Rose frowned, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I just feel like-” she bent over and then threw up the small amount of breakfast she’d actually eaten (these days, she required even less sustenance than the Doctor did), and then heaved up stomach bile as well. “How can I be sick? I don’t even remember the last time I was sick,” she groaned.

The Doctor’s eyes widened. “Oh! I just remembered that yesterday I was going to tell you about my theory, that it isn’t a coincidence our bond broke right after the TARDIS malfunctioned. And now you just got sick and the TARDIS clearly isn’t working properly, which only adds to my theory that there’s a connection here.”

“Well let’s figure it out sooner rather than later,” Rose grumbled as she straightened up. She grabbed a paper towel off of the rack on the counter and wiped her mouth, then grabbed one of the partially full mugs off the table so that she could chug the tea and try to get the taste of sick out of her mouth. “I’m already feeling better, so at least there’s that. Come on, let’s get to the console room to make sure there’s no other major disasters going on at the moment. I wouldn’t be surprised. Don’t they usually come in threes?”

The two of them made their way to the console room, and luckily didn’t encounter anything troubling along the way. River and the humans were all waiting patiently, and Rose was glad that the pool hadn’t moved again and suddenly swept any of them away. Everyone seemed to start talking at once to ask what was going on, and it was giving Rose a headache- something else she hadn’t gotten in a very long time if one didn’t count the times she’d been hit in the head.

The Doctor held up her hands to motion for the others to be quiet. “Look, I know that you wanted to get your trip, and I promise that you will. It might even be within a couple of minutes for you. But I cannot keep you on the TARDIS when I don’t know what’s going on. I am not going to put you all at risk like that.”

“I actually agree,” Rose said with a sigh. “Maybe it was just a couple inches of pool water this time, but who knows what it will be next? So we’re going to drop you three home, and come back for you once we’ve figured this out.”

The humans looked disappointed, but they were as understanding about the situation as they could be. The Doctor walked up to the console to put in the coordinates, and the trip was made in mostly silence. “You swear you’ll be back?” Ryan asked before he actually left the ship.

The Doctor grinned at him. “Of course! And with Rose helping me drive, we shouldn’t even be too late!” There was a long pause, and then the Doctor looked a bit shocked when Ryan gave her a quick hug before leaving. 

Graham looked back and forth between the Doctor and Rose. “You two take care of each other, alright?”

“I promise,” the Doctor responded quietly. 

Yaz laughed as she looked at the River, the Doctor, and Rose. “Try not to get into too much trouble- though I know that’s probably asking a lot of you.” 

Then the humans were all gone, and River turned to look at Rose. “What’s going on?”

Rose gave River a quick hug, and a kiss on the cheek (she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach River’s forehead). “I need you to head home for now too, okay? To be honest, we don’t really know what’s going on, which is why neither of us are willing to put anyone else at risk.”

River frowned, but then she nodded. “Oh alright. I know you don’t need to be worrying about me on top of everything else. But do let me know once you’ve figured out how to fix things here, okay? Because I’m worried about you too.”

Then she fiddled with her vortex manipulator until she was gone, leaving just Rose and the Doctor to deal with whatever the current situation was. They gave each other a long look, and both seemed to sigh at the same time. Rose sank down onto the jump seat, and pulled one knee up to her chest while she left her other leg to dangle. “So if the TARDIS’ issues and mine are really connected, then what way do we need to do this? Will fixing me fix the TARDIS, or is it the other way around?”

There was a look of frustration on the Doctor’s face as she shrugged, and then sat down by Rose’s foot. “I don’t know.” It always irked the Doctor when she didn’t know everything about a situation, especially when it was a situation that involved Rose or any of their companions. 

Rose leaned forward to rest her forehead against the Doctor’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. We always do when we’re together, right?”

There was a pause, and then the Doctor nodded. “Right.” She reached out to put her arm around Rose’s shoulders, shifting them so that they were sitting side by side. “We’ll definitely figure this out.” Though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than anything.


	3. Some Duct Tape and Some Glue- Good As New

It had been three weeks since their bond broke, and neither of them had managed to get any closer to figuring out what was going on with it. The Doctor suggested multiple times that maybe the bond thought that one of them had died for real and was resistant to reforming because it didn’t realize it would be reforming with the right person. Rose thought it would be best to work on finding out what was wrong with the TARDIS so that they could approach the problem from that angle. But neither of them had any success.

The Doctor tipped her head over to lean on Rose’s shoulder. Neither of them needed much sleep, but they still found it comforting to lie in bed together when things were particularly stressful for them. “I hate not knowing what to do,” the Doctor gumbled.

Rose laughed, and rested her head on top of the Doctor’s. “What would be the fun in having all of time and space at your command if you knew all of it already?”

“You have time and space at your command. Why haven’t you found an answer yet?” Even though her tone was teasing, Rose knew that the words weren’t meant to be. The Doctor sighed and reached up to grab Rose’s hand. “I’m sorry, I know that if it were that easy…”

They sat in silence for a little while after that, until they were both jolted out of their thoughts by the sound of the alarms going on. They both leapt out of bed at the same time and rushed to the console room, guided there by the flashing mauve lights. (Once, a couple hundred years ago, Rose had changed the lights to red because she insisted that red was the danger color. When the TARDIS had somehow crashed into a different ship, the Doctor hadn’t realized there was any trouble because he was so used to mauve. Rose had sheepishly changed the settings back after that). 

As soon as they reached the console room, the lights and alarms stopped, leaving both women with echoes of ringing in their ears. They looked around to see what the problem was, but nothing stood out as particularly wrong. “This is so bizarre. The TARDIS isn’t supposed to malfunction!”

Rose reached out to press a hand flat against the console. She hadn’t been able to get more than vague muted impressions from the ship since before the Doctor’s most recent regeneration, and she still wasn’t sure whether it was because the TARDIS was weaker, or because Rose’s bond with it was. 

But then, to Rose’s surprise, she suddenly felt a sharp burning sensation in her hand, and instead of yanking it away like normal human instincts would have demanded, she pressed her hand harder against the only clear space on the console. She could feel the Doctor’s eyes on her, but since Rose wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, she remained silent and focused on the TARDIS. 

And then Rose felt a familiar feeling in the pit of her stomach, the feeling that always came before she made a jump somewhere. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been displaced without wanting to be (maybe it was when the Doctor had saved Gallifrey? Oh, but that was so long ago, it’s not as though Rose could be expected to remember). 

She glanced over at her wife, hoping to offer a little more warning than she had all that time ago. “I think I’m-”

The Doctor lunged forward to grab Rose’s free hand. “I’m so tired of being left behind,” she said with conviction. “I’m coming with you, like it or not.”

Rose grinned even as the TARDIS faded from sight. “Oh believe me, I like it.” 

,,,

The Doctor blinked a few times and looked around. In her experience, time travel without a container was always a painful and uncomfortable experience, but when she was hitching a ride with Rose, it didn’t feel like anything at all. One moment they were on the TARDIS together, and the next they were here… wherever here was.

Before the Doctor could try and figure out where they’d ended up, she realized that she was no longer holding Rose’s hand, which was a problem on so many levels. First and foremost being that the Doctor enjoyed holding Rose’s hand quite a lot. She looked around, and spotted Rose standing nearby, crouched down to stare at a patch of plants.

When the Doctor walked closer, she realized why Rose seemed so intrigued. Those plants could only be found on Gallifrey, but they’d gone extinct a few thousand years before the Doctor had been loomed, which meant that they were in the planet’s past. “Why here?”

Rose shrugged. “Not sure yet. But I know that I wouldn’t have been brought here if it wasn’t important. The strange thing is that I-” and then her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she passed out. 

The Doctor quickly caught her wife, and sank to the ground to cradle Rose on her lap. Then she started internally freaking out. Rose never got hurt or sick, hadn’t since she was a shopgirl in London. And the Doctor had seen Rose make hundreds of jumps all around within the span of minutes and not feel even the slightest bit tired. Which meant that Rose had no right to be passing out in the Doctor’s arms (stranding them both in the past, but more importantly, making the Doctor worry). 

As the Doctor stared at Rose in concern, wishing that she could just peek into Rose’s head to make sure that everything was okay in there, she heard the soft shuffle of bare feet against soft ground. She looked up to see a small group of children wander out from who-knows-where. 

“Ah, hello there. I don’t suppose that any of you are Doctors? Oh, what am I saying? I’m a Doctor!” She shifted so that Rose’s head was being held up by one arm while she reached into one of her pockets to dig around for her sonic screwdriver with the other. She pulled it out successfully after a few tries (and promised herself that she would pick up the discarded garbage later). 

She went to scan Rose, but before she could press the button, one of the children walked over and knelt down next to the two blondes. “Who are you?” The child reached out to pat the Doctor’s forehead, as though that was an entirely socially acceptable thing to do (not that the Doctor was an expert there). “You are sad and scared. Don’t be scared, I won’t hurt you.”

The Doctor couldn’t help letting out a soft chuckle at that. “Ah, thank you, that’s very relieving.” She looked closely at the children, who all seemed to be freely using their telepathy amongst each other, and on her. The Doctor had never been a very strong telepath, but it hadn’t mattered because with the bond in place, her mind had been completely protected by Rose’s. “I’m the Doctor. Who are you?”

The child gave the Doctor a long look before answering. “Ezmashikulgridom, but my friends just call me Ezma. And that’s Qakrudomosan, Drithamuthitras, and Charsogluhaltunlulted. They go by Qak, Dritham, and Char.” They gestured to each of the other children as they introduced them. 

Clearly Gallifreyan names, though the Doctor couldn’t recall a time when any had given their names so freely to strangers. Then again, the Doctor’s only real experience was with the Time Lords, and they tended to do things differently than the general population. “It’s nice to meet you, Ezma, Qak, Dritham, and Char. Would you lovely people happen to know where I might find some transportation around here?” She probably wouldn’t be allowed to take a TARDIS, but a regular ship would hopefully be acceptable, and then she could at least have a more comfortable place to put Rose down than the ground. 

Ezma, who was clearly the leader of the group, shook their head. “We’re all ground-bound. Why didn’t you know that?” They gave the Doctor a closer look, and even though she couldn’t actually feel the mental probing, she knew that that had to be what the child was doing. “You’re from the future? And-” Ezma cut themself off, and then glanced over their shoulder at the others. “Bad Wolf.”

The simple proclamation was enough to garner a reaction in all of the children, and the Doctor could only stare at them in surprise. Of course she knew who her wife was, but how would these children know? Bad Wolf’s name had been scattered so that Rose could find it, and there’s no way she ever would have found it here. “How do you know that name?” 

One of the others, Char, stepped forward, and knelt down in front of Rose. “She’s not as pretty as the stories say she is.”

The Doctor and the other children all protested at once. “She’s the most gorgeous creature in the universe!” the Doctor declared at the same time the children scolded their friend. “Don’t say that!” They all looked frightened by Char’s words, and the girl got back to her feet and moved several steps away. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend the Wolf. Do you think she’ll forgive me?”

The Doctor blinked a few times, then gave a slow nod. “Oh, of course. Rose has always had a big heart. Now if you don’t mind, could one of you tell me how you could possibly know who she is? I happen to know for a fact that her mind is impenetrable, so you couldn’t have learned it from there. And even if you got it out of my head, that wouldn’t explain your reactions.”

The one called Dritham cleared his throat. “Doesn’t everyone know about the Bad Wolf? The stories all say that she created the universe and all the people in it, and that someday she will save our people. How do you know Bad Wolf but not know that?”

The Doctor shrugged. “I’ve been told once or twice that I’m a bit daft, so I do apologize for any deficiencies.” 

Ezma cleared their throat to get the Doctor’s attention again. “Bad Wolf gave you the gift of her blessing, and took you through time, right?”

“Something like that. Why?”

They crossed their arms over their chest and gave the Doctor a look that showed they clearly thought she was an idiot. “So what did you give her in return? You can’t just take blessings from a goddess without giving an offering. That’s probably why she’s sick now.”

The Doctor tried to process all of that, but it seemed like a bit much even for her. “A goddess?” Sure, she thought of her wife as something like a goddess, but only because she adored Rose so much. Not because she’d ever really thought of Rose as someone who would be worshipped by civilizations of people. And stranger still that those people would be Gallifreyan. This may be a while before the Doctor came into existence, but the Time Lords were notoriously good archivists, so surely she would have heard mention of Bad Wolf somewhere at some point in her childhood?

But that wasn’t the most important thing at the moment. The Doctor focused her sonic screwdriver on Rose again, and did a quick scan as she tried to figure out what was going on. And why Bad Wolf had brought them here of all places. The scans didn’t show anything wrong with Rose, and the Doctor was back to the starting line. 

She carefully got to her feet, doing her best not to jostle Rose around too much. “Can any of you help me get her to a hospital? Not that I think they’d be able to provide her with much help, but at least then I could actually feel like I’m doing something.” 

Ezma rolled their eyes. “Yeah, taking Bad Wolf to the hospital wouldn’t cause any kind of panic. You realize that everyone would be able to figure it out pretty quickly?” 

Qak tugged on Ezma’s sleeve. “What is this is a test?” he whispered loudly enough for everyone present to be able to hear him. “Like if we refuse to help then the Wolf will curse us and our families for all of eternity?”

Instead of laughing the idea off, the children all gave uneasy looks to Rose’s unconscious body, and the Doctor had to fight to keep the offense out of her voice. “Rose would never do anything like that. She helps people, that’s all. I don’t know how she became a part of your legends, but I know that she’s a good person, and she wouldn’t curse innocent people, even if she was capable of such a thing.” 

Not that the Doctor could say with absolute certainty that she wasn’t- it was impossible to ever truly understand the scope of what Bad Wolf could do. Then another question occurred to the Doctor. “Why are you all grounded?”

Ezma sighed. “Because it’s dangerous to leave the planet.”

Even though the Doctor had a lot of other things that should take priority, she couldn’t help the way that her curiosity was piqued at the mention of danger. “What makes it so dangerous? And why can’t some Time Lord who’s off-planet fix the problem?”

Ezma snorted. “No one’s off-planet, I already said that. And I don’t know where you’re from, but there’s no lords or ladies here, ma’am.” There was a pause before she added. “Wow. the future must be a very different place.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult to pop off in a TARDIS after all. She’d gotten away with it the first time, so why couldn’t she now? She’d just have to make sure not to steal her own TARDIS, since that would obviously create a paradox. Or, if Rose decided to actually wake up anytime soon, maybe the Doctor could steal a TARDIS to bring them back to theirs, and then they could both take the separate TARDIS’ back here, drop off the stolen one, and both leave in the Doctor’s TARDIS again. Or was that too complicated?

“Right, well then if you could just lead me to pretty much anywhere resembling civilization, that would be quite helpful. And I would make sure that Bad Wolf would never do anything to bring you harm.” Of course Rose would never do anything to hurt people in the first place, but clearly these children didn’t know that. Should the Doctor feel bad for manipulating these little kids?

Or maybe there couldn’t be much manipulation done, since they could clearly tell what the Doctor was thinking. Ezma gave the Doctor a dubious look, and then shrugged one shoulder. “Well, regardless of whether this is a test or not, I don’t think I could live with myself if we were to leave the Bad Wolf to sleep out here in the middle of nowhere.”

The Doctor nodded. “Right, excellent point. Also, why are you all out in the ‘middle of nowhere’?”

The children all laughed, as if the Doctor had just asked something funny, and they didn’t answer as they all turned and started walking off. The Doctor assumed that she was just supposed to follow, and she was glad that Time Lords had superior biology that allowed her to carry the unconscious Rose with perfect ease. 

They walked along for a while (thirty-six minutes and twelve seconds) before Ezma came to an abrupt halt, and glanced back at the Doctor. “Uh, just to warn you, everyone’s going to notice right away that you’re different, even if they don’t take any in-depth peeks.” Then they continued forward, and the Doctor followed.

They emerged through a rather thick bush, and into a village that looked like it could have come out of prehistoric Earth times. The Doctor did her best to hide her shock at the state that her people had been in so recently. How did she not know about any of this? She wracked her memory for any hint of anything she might have learned in the Academy that was about a time lived like this, but she came up blank. 

Ezma ran over to an older looking woman. “Gran! Gran! Look, we found strangers!”

The woman gave the child a long look. “I have never heard you sound so excited about an exchange- but that’s not what this is, is it?” She looked up at the Doctor, and then her gaze fell to Rose. She let out a startled gasp and dropped to her knees, and any remaining hope the Doctor might have held about the children just having childish fantasies was gone. “Bad Wolf,” the woman murmured reverently. “We are blessed by her presence.”

The Doctor bit back complaints about how Gallifreyans didn’t worship any deities, since clearly these ones did, and decided to stick to the more important things going on. “Do you have anywhere I can put her down to rest?”

Much to the Doctor’s surprise, the woman immediately shook her head, looking horrified. “Absolutely not!”

Ezma tugged on the woman’s robe. “Gran,” she hissed. “You’re going to offend the Wolf!” 

The woman shook her head again. “No, the only offense would be if any of us dared to lay her down in our humble beds. Nothing that we own could possibly be good enough for the goddess of Time.”

“It’s fine,” Rose mumbled, and the Doctor almost dropped her wife out of surprise. She looked down, and frowned when she saw how pale Rose looked, and her eyes were still closed. “‘m fine, or I will be. Just need to get us back.” She didn’t make any move to stand up, and the Doctor didn’t make any move to let go. 

She actually tightened her grip on her wife, and looked down at her with wide eyes. “What’s going on?”

Rose let out a weary sigh. “The TARDIS is already stretched so thin, and me coming to a time when she doesn’t yet exist only made her worse. So I guess my body instinctively tried to support the TARDIS, even though we are so very far away.”

“The TARDIS doesn’t exist yet,” the Doctor repeated. She focused on her time sense, and realized that she couldn’t figure out exactly what time they were in. “So bring us back, then.” Of course the Doctor wanted to stay and help with whatever was plaguing these Gallifreyans, but in the end, the Doctor knew that Rose was more important. Unless it was about the fate of the entire universe (which it very well had been on a couple of occasions), the Doctor couldn’t help putting Rose first. 

Unfortunately, Rose was usually quite opposed to that kind of thinking. “We can’t go yet,” she whispered, even though she couldn’t currently read the Doctor’s mind without their bond. “We were brought here for a reason. The last time I was taken away without my consent, it was about saving your planet. And now we’re back on Gallifrey? Surely you can’t believe that this is just a coincidence?” 

The Doctor sighed, and reluctantly shook her head. “No, I know that it can’t be a coincidence. But somehow knowing that doesn’t stop me from wanting to pretend that it is.”

Rose scoffed. “Don’t be daft, we both know that you’re just dying to figure out what’s going on so that you can save the day, just like you always do.” One corner of her mouth quirked up in a poor parody of her usual brilliant grin, but the Doctor was willing to take just about anything at the moment, as long as it meant that Rose was still with her. After a long couple of seconds, Rose shifted out of the Doctor’s arms, and dropped to the ground with a heavier landing than normal. It looked like it took her some serious effort to remain upright as she finally opened her eyes and looked at the villagers. “We’re here to help, so just point us towards the problem, and we’ll solve it for you.”

The woman nodded, accepting Rose’s words immediately. “Of course. I had not thought to presume, but knowing that you came to us in our time of need is very comforting.”

“That’s us,” the Doctor chimed in. “The very comforting pair. So, what exactly is this ‘danger’ that’s keeping everyone grounded?”

The woman sighed, and then nodded towards a wooded area just behind the village. “Come, follow me. I believe that this is something that you need to see for yourself.” She started walking, and Rose and the Doctor shared a quick look before hurrying after her. The Doctor could only hope that Rose was okay, or at the very least that Rose wouldn’t die before they could get back to the TARDIS. That would certainly put a bit of a damper on their marriage.

They didn’t follow the woman for very long before she came to a stop in a small clearing, and the Doctor and Rose stepped past her so that they could see what the problem was. It was immediately obvious, as the Doctor stared down into a rather sizeable crater that was clearly not meant to be there. 

Excited to actually figure out what was going on, the Doctor rushed forward, and crouched down at the edge of the crater so that she could peer into it. Normally, she probably would have just jumped right down and waited for Rose to do the same, but at the moment she didn’t want to do anything that would potentially worsen Rose’s condition, especially since she still wasn’t exactly sure of what said condition was. 

The crater wasn’t too deep, which made it easy enough to spot the metal container at the bottom, half buried in the dirt. It had clearly fallen down from somewhere very high up. The Doctor glanced back over her shoulder at their guide. “How long has this been here? And why does this imply danger in leaving the planet?”

Rose put her hand on the Doctor’s shoulder to give a light squeeze. “I don’t think that now is the right time for questions,” she murmured. “We should just focus on the task at hand.” 

The Doctor frowned as she stood back up to face Rose. “But if we don’t ask questions, how are we supposed to know what the task is? And besides, since when has Rose Tyler ever discouraged the asking of questions? Are we in some kind of parallel universe where you’re destined to act like the opposite of yourself, or something?”

That brought a small smile out on Rose’s face, and the Doctor felt quite accomplished, even if that hadn’t been her intention. “Well, alright, maybe there’s time for a few questions. Just make sure that they’re the right ones, okay?” She lowered her voice so that only the Doctor would be able to hear her. “I don’t want you to worry, but I know that without the bond we need to be completely honest with each other, and truthfully I’m not sure how long I can stay here before I pass out again. And considering I’m our ride home, that would be a bad thing.” 

Maybe Rose didn’t want the Doctor to worry, but how could the Doctor ever not worry when she knew that there was something wrong with her wife? But she also knew that it was important to help these people, which is why she just gave a determined nod. “Okay, I’m going to check out that box. Stay here and ask all the questions for me, yeah?” When Rose nodded in agreement, the Doctor leaned forward to give Rose a quick kiss, and then she jumped down into the crater. 

It wasn’t a bad fall, and she landed on the dirt, not the metal box. That probably would have hurt. She made her way over to the box, and looked at it curiously. It had no markings anywhere on the lid, but when the Doctor knelt down to look at the seam, she saw an oddly Earth-styled padlock, and there was a simple looking rose etched into the front. The Doctor narrowed her eyes as she considered everything. When it came to her wife, she knew that there were very rarely any coincidences, and finding a container with her wife’s namesake on it on Gallifrey several thousand years in the past didn’t seem like the sort of thing that just happened. 

The Doctor glanced up, but Rose had already backed away from the edge enough that the Doctor couldn’t see her anymore, and the Doctor was hit with a wave of longing for their bond. It had always let her know that Rose was alright, even when they were out of each other’s sight, and saved the Doctor a lot of worries whenever they were out saving worlds.

She turned back to the mysterious box, and pulled her sonic screwdriver out to point at the lock, which was not made of wood. It popped open easily enough, and from what the Doctor could tell, it really was just a basic twenty-first century Earthen padlock, which only connected back to Rose even more. 

The Doctor stuck the lock into her pocket, and then took a deep breath (mostly in anticipation, and not because someone with a superior respiratory bypass actually needed help breathing in such a calm situation, of course), and then grabbed the edge of the box and yanked the lid up.

She let out a loud gasp, both because of the sight of her wife lying inside was basically looked like a metal coffin, and because the second the lid opened, the Doctor had felt their bond snap back into place with so much force that it physically hurt. 

The Doctor had no idea what was going on (and boy did she hate that), but she knew without a doubt that the woman in the box was her wife, because there was no way to lie through the kind of bond that they shared, and once the initial pain faded away, the Doctor was able to think more clearly than she had in weeks. 

She leaned over the side of the box to grab one of Rose’s hands, and her eyes fluttered open after a couple of seconds. Her gaze darted around in confusion for a moment before landing on the Doctor, and she shifted to sit up. “Took you long enough,” she grumbled. “Where are we anyways?”

The Doctor blinked a couple of times, and gave Rose a long look. “What’s going on?” She was impatient for answers, but for some reason, after a few weeks of not having the bond, she almost felt like it would be prying to peek into Rose’s mind, even though they’d been looking at each other’s thoughts for more years than either of them could count. 

Rose stood up and stepped out of the box, though the Doctor refused to let go of her hand, and instead just helped pull her up. “Did I tell you yet that I quite like this new face of yours.”

“Once or twice, but it couldn’t hurt to hear it again,” the Doctor immediately responded, but then she pressed her lips together in a flat line and tried to force herself to be more serious. “But Rose, what is going on?”

Rose reached back with her free hand to close the box, and sat down on the lid, pulling the Doctor down to sit next to her. She patted the closest bit of metal to her. “Don’t you recognize it?” The Doctor glanced down at the box again, but nothing about it, other than the lock still in her pocket, had anything familiar about it. It was just a plain box that for some reason, had contained her wife. Rose leaned over to kiss the Doctor’s cheek, and then sighed. “So I guess it started when-”

“Doctor?” Rose’s voice suddenly called from up above, and both the Doctor and Rose looked up to see the Rose who was still standing up there. She looked even more pale, and the Doctor jumped up in concern, and then she looked back and forth between the two Roses.

The Rose from the box arched one eyebrow, and the Doctor shrugged as she realized that Rose could probably tell what she was thinking anyways. “I’d be lying if I said that I never had any dreams that started like this.”

Rose snorted, and then tilted her head back. “We’ll be right up!” Then she grinned at the Doctor with that beautiful tongue-touched grin. “Race you to the top!” 

Both of them hurried to climb up the loose dirt sides of the crater, and when they got to the top, they had dirt all over themselves. They took one look at each other before they both burst out laughing, and the Doctor could feel the joy through the bond. 

The other Rose was standing there alone. “I sent Rimea back to her village- that’s the woman’s nickname.” She gave her other self a long look before she nodded once. “I should have expected something like this. Always got competition, right?”

Before the Doctor could tell them that they didn’t need to fight over her, the healthier looking Rose grinned. “Yup, you got me. I’m just here to steal your woman.” Then both Roses laughed, and the Doctor felt confused (though she wasn’t sure if there were any emotions in the world that could possibly be strong enough to overshadow how happy she was to have her bond back). 

Then the Doctor cleared her throat to get the attention of both Roses. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on here, or am I going to have to guess? You already know that I’m a master at charades, so if we are going in that direction, be prepared to lose.”

The Rose from the box laughed and took the Doctor’s hand again. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything. Let’s just get back to the TARDIS.”

The Doctor quickly shook her head. “We can’t go yet. We still don’t know what’s been causing danger for the Gallifreyans.”

“Is that where we are? Let’s see…” Rose closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. “There is no danger. The people saw that box fall, and assumed that it was a weapon shot down by an enemy ship, but it wasn’t, so they’re all perfectly safe, I promise.”

The Doctor searched the bond almost without thinking, and could immediately see that Rose was telling the truth. “Huh. Well that’s pretty anticlimactic. Should we at least tell the people what’s going on, then?”

The pale Rose shook her head. “They won’t remember anyways. Can’t you feel it, Doctor? This is a moment out of time.” Then she took the Doctor’s free hand, and gave the Doctor a kiss on the cheek. A moment later, the sight of the familiar trees disappeared, and between one blink and the next they were back on the TARDIS. 

The Doctor should have felt relieved to be back, but one of her hands was empty, and she immediately looked around in panic. The Rose that was still there, the one that had come out of the box, reached around to take the Doctor’s empty hand and give it a comforting squeeze. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine. I’ll explain it all to you now, I promise.”

They went to the library and cuddled on the couch together, unbothered by the fact that they were spreading dirt everywhere. “Alright, so tell me. Because I have tried thinking about this in every way possible, and I still don’t know what happened. And I still don’t understand why I couldn’t fix our bond.”

Rose leaned against the Doctor. “This might sound a bit complicated, though I’m sure that your big impressive Time Lord brain will be able to keep up. It started with the day you fell out of the TARDIS. The moment you fell, the poor old girl panicked and tried to maneuver to get you back in, but she was already having troubles, obviously, and she only twisted herself up into knots. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to repair herself safely with me onboard, so she jettisoned me off for my own safety. When that box was closed, it was essentially a zero room, because the TARDIS suffering so much made me hurt as well. In the box, I was safe from my connection to the TARDIS, but also cut off from my connection to you. 

“The TARDIS’ plan was to pick me back up once she finished repairing herself, but she didn’t take into account any of the backup plans that I had put into place for myself. One of the things I did, ages and ages ago at this point, was to make a backup copy, I guess you could call it. Because Bad Wolf is part of the TARDIS and vice versa, it meant I could take a little piece of myself and store it onboard to be activated in the case of an emergency. 

“Well, me being forcibly evicted from the TARDIS counts as an emergency, and it activated that particular emergency protocol of mine. It may have been just a piece of me, but it was still me, sort of like the same way my first husband was still the Doctor. And while she was, of course, aware of the protocol, she didn’t realize that she was the protocol. Since the TARDIS was still repairing herself, still was up until a few hours ago from what I can tell, she got confused by the presence of myself, and figured that I must have gotten back on board somehow. 

“But I had never intended for that piece of me to be active for so long, or to leave the TARDIS. If she had stayed on the ship, she might have lasted for a few more months, or maybe even a couple of years, but going so far away from the TARDIS, and making several jumps, severely weakened her because it used up the small amount of energy that she had to begin with. Bad Wolf and Rose Tyler are both powered by the heart of the TARDIS, but I couldn’t figure out a way to put more than the tiniest bit of that energy into the protocol. 

“I think that the TARDIS finished fixing herself, and then realized that the shade of me wasn’t the full me. She must’ve done a search to figure out where I’d landed, and then she-” Rose paused for a moment and tilted her head to the side, and the Doctor knew that she was listening to the TARDIS. Now it made sense that she hadn’t seen that happen in the past few weeks. “She wanted to go herself, but knew that if she did, the protocol would still have enough energy to survive longer, and she knew that it would end badly, so she just sent the protocol directly to me. She didn’t expect you to hitch a ride, though I suppose she should have.

“Anyways, with me out of the zero room opened, our bond snapped back into place, and then the protocol realized what she was, and knew that she was dying. She didn’t want to go back to being a code on the ship, so I re-integrated what little energy she had left, and now we’re back here and everything is fine.”

The Doctor blinked a couple of times and took a few minutes to process all of that. How had she not noticed that the Rose of the past few weeks hadn’t been real? 

“She was real,” Rose said softly, and the Doctor realized just how much she’d missed having their bond in place. “Her body and power over Time might not have been as strong as mine, but she was still me, with all of the same thoughts and memories and feelings.”

They were both silent for a long moment, and then the Doctor pulled away from Rose enough to look her in the eyes. “Why did you even create such a protocol? And why didn’t you ever tell me about it?”

Rose sighed, and looked down at her own lap. “Like I said, it was a long time ago. Before the end of the universe, before Amy saved us both. I thought that-”

The Doctor’s eyes widened. “You were going to just let yourself die?”

Rose had her sleeves pulled down over her hands so that she could fidget with them while she avoided the Doctor’s gaze. “What else was I supposed to do? All of time and space at my command, but I couldn’t predict that a single human woman who I only knew as a child would care enough to bring you back. I would have been fine, but I didn’t see the point in being fine if it meant you’d be gone, so I was ready to do whatever I had to in order to keep you around. I certainly didn’t think she’d bring me back too. With the protocol you would’ve had several years with me still-”

“That would have never been enough,” the Doctor said fiercely. “I’m too greedy for that, Rose. Anything less than eternity wouldn’t be enough for me.”

Rose finally met the Doctor’s gaze. “I know that now. You’re stuck with me for a very long time yet. I just kinda forgot about the whole thing, since it was so long ago.”  
And the Doctor could feel the sincerity through their bond, so she leaned forward to pull Rose into a tight hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you. I felt so lonely these past few weeks. I spent so long being used to having someone else in my head that I couldn’t stand having nothing there.”

“I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” 

They stayed together on that couch for a while, and neither of them bothered to keep track of the time. What difference did it make, when they had all the time in the world? Eventually, though, the Doctor thought of one last question she still had about everything. “So what made the TARDIS malfunction in the first place?”

There was a feeling of sheepishness over the bond before Rose answered. “Ah, it may have something to do with Z’reina and I eating in places that you’ve specifically forbidden us to bring food.”

The Doctor furrowed her eyebrows. “Who?”

Rose grinned as she glanced down at her still freshly painted nails for a moment, only slightly ruined by the dirt all over them, and then looked back at the Doctor with a grin. “Oh, spoilers.”

“I’ll show you spoilers,” the Doctor grumbled, and Rose jumped up to run away, so the Doctor immediately chased after her, and they ran all over the TARDIS, shouting and laughing like children. 

The TARDIS was relieved that all was right with the world again, so she set the coordinates while her pilots were busy. They still had a few humans to pick up show the universe to, afterall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully that long-winded explanation for everything is satisfying enough! I spent a while feeling conflicted about what it should be, but this is what I settled on in the end. Also, sorry that there's no big grand adventure, I just wanted to focus more on their relationship.


End file.
